2.
Background and Glossary  e-Procurement • CPV • A public procurements initiated, negotiated and/or – Common Procurement Vocabulary concluded using electronic means, i.e. using electronic • LOD equipment for the processing and storage of data, in – Linking Open Data or Linked Open Data particular through the Internet. • NUTS  Public procurement – Nomenclature of Territorial Units for • A procedure initiated by a contracting authority with a Statistic view of acquiring goods, services or public works for the fulfillment of its tasks. • OWL  Public Procurement Notice, notice, public contract, etc. – Ontology Web Language • Being strict are not the same. • PSI • There are distinct definitions depending on the stage: – Public Sector Information PriorNotice, AwardNotice, etc. • RDF • For the sake of a better understanding we will use – Resource Description Framework these terms to refer the same thing “an • SME announcement” of a new public procurement process – Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (first stage and notice). • TED – Tenders Electronic DailySource: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/docs/2010/e-procurement/siemens-study_en.pdf 22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 2

3.
The problem… I have a family business that produces beds and other bedroom furniture… but I do not have clients Let’s search… due to the crisis… I think we could sell our and we could also try to sell products in other countries… beds to public administrations…22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 3

5.
Some help…an expert in e-Procurement We are a Spanish SME that sells an alert service about public procurement opportunities… We need the type ofWe will deliver to you a contract… daily report… And other variables: value, …the region… duration, etc. 22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 5

7.
… Is it a familiar business? Isn’t it? “yes, we are 10 people…” “Great!...a SME… “Do you have any thinking about the duration of the contract or the value? “I suppose we could assume contracts about 60000€ of one year duration…” “Ok! I am going to collect all these features and I will report you the new opportunities…” “Great! I hope to get some business opportunity…” “For sure! Don’t hesitate about it!22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 7

12.
Yes, you can speak/read/write Spanish… …and the location, where is “Asturias”? …and the format? you have software to read PDFs, PNGs, etc. files …and what is the meaning of “2012”? “2012” it is clearly a year …and what is the meaning of “3.371.282,99 €”? It is clearly a value (~three million of Euros) using “.” as decimal separator22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 12

13.
Yes, but…we seek for an alert service… • The information and data should be… – Automatically processed • Machine-processable format – Validated against a common data model – Available for querying via a formal language such as SQL – Usable to build added-value services – … • Someone could say: ”Ok! But I can search by myself in the web and manually check the features” – Yes, why not? You can perfectly check an average of 16K notices per day in the European Union22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 13

15.
…But• …a tangled realm of data and information… – Formats, models, APIs, providers, classifications, locations, etc. It is not easy to reuse this valuable public sector information (PSI) We should make this information/data available to be machine-processable…22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 15

23.
“There is not so much gain, it is just another way to represent information…” “Yes, but it is machine-processable (properties have semantics) and we can do better!” • Re-using well-know vocabularies, properties, etc. • Making use of data properties • Labeling all resources • …22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 23

25.
“It seems better but…” “Can we also represent the data in public procurement notices?” “Yes, of course, we can follow the same approach!”22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 25

26.
“Firstly we are going to introduce the concept of Linked Data…”22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 26

27.
Linked Data Principles 5* Model1. Use URIs to name things2. When someone looks up a URI, provide useful information, using the standards (RDF*, SPARQL).3. Include links to other URIs.4. Use HTTP URIs.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga1aSJXCFe0 (Tim Berners-Lee and “The bag of crisps”) 22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 27

28.
“These principles can be achieved by applying RDF to represent data and we can reach 5*!” “Yes, but you should make links to existing datasets” “Where Can I find them?” “In the LOD Cloud there are some RDF datasets and they are also open!”22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 28

32.
“Great! We can reuse the information and data…but… Can we enrich that data?” “Yes, you can create a “proxy” resource with new data and link to the existing one” “For instance, we are going to add lat/long to the NUTS code GR”22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 32

34.
“We can easily extend the RDF model to represent information keeping the semantics” “Yes, exactly.” “Wait, wait, wait…we have a data model, an implicit semantics and a query language…so this is like a traditional database”22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 34

38.
“Can I execute SPARQL queries?” “Yes, you could ask….” “Give me gymnasts, born in Thessaloniki that have won an Olympic gold medal, including their name, date of birth and some comment about them”22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 38

46.
If we talk the same language (RDF) we can easily fulfill the requirements of our “bed manufacturer”. We would report the possibility of tendering in “Asturias” (ES12) to provide “Beds” (CPV-33192100) and other furniture (CPV-39143116 & CPV-39143310-2).22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 46

50.
What we got…  New way for representing the valuable information of public procurement notices applying semantic technologies  New datasets that are now part of the LOD Cloud  Dissemination and networking  Expertise, know-how generation and new research lines  …maybe A step forward to a new way of publishing public data, more specifically procurement data  Enabling cross-border business opportunities22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 50

51.
Main Conclusion We can represent information and data in public procurement notices using semantic technologies (vocabularies, datasets, etc.)  Overcoming most of the problems in public procurement notices22/02/2013 Thessaloniki, Greece 51